40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 670 52. Belated Judgment (Twenty-one)

Lion El'Jonson thought nothing as Conrad Curze thrust those bloody claws at him.

His mind was blank, like a package that had been opened, and everything that made it valuable had been quietly taken away by someone. Now all that was left was an empty box.

But, no matter what, there is always some "feeling" left here.

It comes from the irrational world, from the place where humans call "spirituality" and many other strange things live. There, you don't need eyes to see things, and you don't need words to communicate with each other.

There, Lion El'Jonson was roaring.

Sadly, even this last bit of sound could hardly cross his mind, which had become an empty land. For now, the only thing it could do was to echo here, echoing endlessly.

But he's still fighting.

To reiterate: Lion El'Jonson is still fighting.

His armor was covered in blood, and the damage to many joints was so severe that his power was disrupted, forcing him to pay more attention to the left half of his body when moving, otherwise he would lose balance.

In addition, there were seven penetrating wounds, starting from the chest and extending to the right knee joint. The most serious one was in the abdomen, which was almost a laceration and the bleeding had not stopped until now. In addition, there were countless abrasions and bruises.

There is no doubt that he is at a disadvantage in this battle.

Yet Lion El'Jonson held the sword tightly, as if it were part of his bones, as if he was born to hold it, and no force could force him to let go of the sword unless he wanted to.

His enemies were furious.

"What else do you have to resist?"

The skinny monster asked questions in the darkness between attacks, with anger, curiosity and a sadness that he himself was not aware of.

"Do you think you've won, Leon? I'm almost killing you, and the only thing stopping me from speeding this up is that I want to have more fun, that's all."

The lion did not answer.

"Well, I knew it was useless to ask--"

The wind was howling, and a monster fell from the sky with wild laughter and pinned him to the ground.

The two claws could have pierced the lion's exposed neck at this moment, thus ending the battle once and for all, but he chose another place to start. The black armor pieces flew everywhere, and the lion's breastplate was hit harshly again.

Night Haunter followed his mid-game change of strategy carefully and meticulously, extending his brother's life by a few seconds once again.

This so-called "good deed" brought him serious consequences. The lion drew the dagger from his waist and forced him to stand up and retreat.

The ghost narrowed his eyes, and a lot of saliva suddenly secreted from his mouth filled with the smell of blood, like a hungry beast.
He forced himself to suppress the murderous intent that was rising in his mind, took a few steps back, and waited silently for the lion to stand up.

"How about saving some self-respect for yourself, Leon?" The ghost rubbed his claws and showed a silly smile. "You and I both know that I could have killed you just now."

The lion rushed towards him without saying a word, and struck him straight in the face. The ghost dodged nimbly, his posture as graceful as a dancer. Despite this, his expression became very distorted, and a kind of seemingly justified resentment was boiling.

"Pretending to be dumb won't solve anything!"

He disappeared into the darkness and screamed at the bleeding lion. The sound was as shrill as the cold wind blowing across the faces of corpses at the alley on a cold winter night.
Then, he received a whistling dagger. It flew past the ghost's left cheek by a hair's breadth, leaving a deep wound. Flesh bloomed from the wound, as if someone had drawn two lines on his pale face with a flesh-colored pen.

Only after this did the blood begin to gush out.

The ghost was a little stunned. In his past life, whether he was clear-headed or crazy, he had never encountered such a thing as this one - but the fact could not be changed. Not only did the lion find him with a dagger, he even made him bleed.

Unconsciously, the ghost's facial muscles began to twitch, he raised the corners of his mouth and forced a sharp smile.

"Very good, very good," he said sinisterly and hypocritically. "You really don't know how to treat other people's kindness, Leon, no wonder you let your legion fall apart. Tell me, how does it feel to kill your own offspring with your own hands?"

The lion ignored him and just ran over with the sword in hand. The ghost immediately moved to another place, his eyes twitching.

"You Caliban bastard!"

The Lion pulled out his bolter from his belt and began firing at him. Each shot was extremely accurate and deadly. If it were an ordinary shooter, Ghost would have been fully confident that he could dodge every bullet, but this time it was not possible. At least four bolt shells hit him in this barrage of fire, even if he kept dodging.

They seemed not to have flown out from the barrel of the lion's gun, but to have come from a world that could not be observed or understood. The most dangerous one even hit his neck guard, causing explosions, vibrations, and splattered flesh.

The ghost screamed and slowed down his steps for a moment - and in that moment, a whirlwind blew him down.

The lion, holding a lion sword, stepped on him, his expressionless face covered in blood.

The ghost looked at him in astonishment. There were two sword marks on his breastplate, with arcs of electricity jumping out from them.

The lion raised his hand again——

At this moment, Night Haunter's mind helped him understand one thing at a speed far beyond imagination: defeat was inevitable.

No matter what, he couldn't dodge the next blow. The foot of Lion El'Jonson on his chest seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, cutting off any possibility of dodging. And if he blocked with his claws, the lion sword would immediately turn from a slash to a stab.

But how is this possible? The ghost couldn't help but feel puzzled. He didn't understand why Lion El'Jonson suddenly had such a strong fighting power. He had the upper hand just a few minutes ago.
The most important point is that Lion El'Jonson seems to be familiar with the way he moves.

The sharp edge of the lion sword was reflected in the dark pupils of the Midnight Ghost.

--"boom!"

The sword missed, and the Lion Sword buried itself into the black soil beside his ear like a cannonball, exploding into countless things that were not flesh and blood, but more like flesh and blood.

The ghost slowly looked up, and along the shining blade, he saw a pair of eyes that were trying hard to suppress the pain.

This was not the look he remembered from Lion El'Jonson. The Calibanite was like him in some ways, a cold-blooded killer. They would not waver in battle, and would not stop until their enemy was dead.
But now, those painful eyes were clearly telling him one thing.

I will not kill you. The lion roared and shouted from far, far away. I will never kill my brother.

Conrad Curze was speechless for a moment, even forgetting that his madness was urging him: Seize this little bit of mercy and kill him! Let this weak fool taste his own blood!
"you"

He got up from the ground, speechless, and wanted to say something, but nothing came out.

The madness in his mind intensified. The whispering voices and ghosts of the past that had tormented him for nearly a decade crawled out of the cemetery, stretching out their rotten claws, trying to bring him back to the chaos.

They even promised that if you come back to the darkness, there will be no more pain.
As long as you kill him, you won't have to endure any more torture.

Conrad Curz shook his head, and sticky blood rolled out of his nose, along with something else, like minced meat.

He lowered his head and clenched his fists tightly, as if he was experiencing an epileptic seizure. A large amount of blood dripped from his tightly closed mouth, and the sharp canine teeth had long been deeply embedded in the flesh. It was not until a long time later that he shook off this stiffness.

"Look what you've done, Leon."

Koz complained, raising his hand to wipe his nose, and some brain tissue mixed with blood was smeared on his arm armor. "Now, how will this end?"

The lion ignored him and stood quietly there, holding the lion sword in his right hand with four fingers and the thumb hanging in the air.

This was a relaxed posture that could easily lead to his weapon being taken away, and he should never show such an attitude in front of the Midnight Haunter - but he did it anyway. Not only that, he even lowered his head and let the sticky blood drip down his mouth, nose, eyes and ears.

"Say something, say something." Coze told him patiently, the electric current in his claws having stopped at some point. "I know this is difficult for you right now, I can see that."

He suddenly approached the lion and waved his left hand at him.

"But don't give in," Conrad Curz whispered. "Not even once, brother. Remember who you are, remember this, and then slowly stop listening to the voices, stop thinking about them, and just remember who you are."

His face showed deep sadness.
-
'Don't give in'

Leon walked with a dry mouth, feeling extremely painful listening to this familiar voice.

He seemed to know who was speaking. He knew him—or at least he should know him? But that didn't seem to be the case. He had never met a soul as twisted as this.
He just walked like this, confused and numb like a walking corpse. He didn't know where he was, nor where he was going. He just walked with a simple thought: I can't stop.

He walked until the nothingness beneath his feet turned to mud, fragments of the world came rushing back, and his memory frantically retreated to a certain day in the forest when a savage-like boy was patrolling his territory.

Leon watched this scene from the perspective of a bystander, and a word faintly emerged in his mind: behemoth.

So he knew that the boy was hunting the beasts. But why? The boy was not looking for them for food or clothes, he just wanted to kill them, as if he was born to be against the beasts.
Then, more people appeared in the forest, wearing shining silver armor, riding horses, with swords hanging from their waists, guns in their hands, and many flags waving behind them.

They were tense, standing in opposition to the boy, both sides wary of each other, and it was almost a hostile situation until one person stood between the boy and the others.

Who is this guy?
Leon looked at him and saw fiery red hair and a young face.

A name came to mind: Serafax.

"Don't shoot, brothers!" Serafax shouted to the knights. "Trust me, he won't attack!"

Then he turned to look at the boy and whispered, "Is that so? You won't attack, right, Leon?"

Leon felt a splitting headache and seemed to see double images in front of his eyes.

At this moment, Serafax looked almost like someone else, a dark-haired man with a beard and deep-set eyes beneath thick brows, serious and tired, but not hostile.

who are you?
There was no answer, only more images and more Serafaxes.

In the cold winter courtyard, on the battlefield between two armies, in the fortress, in the study, surrounded by giant beasts - Serafax said something over and over again, sometimes serious, sometimes light-hearted, and sometimes even earnestly teaching.

But the double images never ceased, they kept flashing back. No matter what Serafax said or did, his face would at some point change into that of another person.

Leon tried to remember who he was, he always felt that this was very important, but he just couldn't remember.

Why can't I remember it? He asked himself blankly.

There was no answer, only a voice telling him: Don't give in.

The sound was so faint that several times he suspected that it did not exist at all and was just an illusion in his mind, but he always found new evidence.

When Serafax told him in the middle of the battlefield: I will watch your back, this voice followed closely with the double image. When Serafax was too old to join the Legion, this voice also came.

Even when Serafax was deprived of his command, the voice was still there. Countless moments, countless flashes, repeated, and the fragmented images that made him deepen his memory of Serafax.
Don't give in. It says over and over again. Remember who you really are.

who am I?
In the forest of Caliban, Leon asked himself this question. Coincidentally, he asked the same question in the study, on the flagship, and on Terra.

who am I?
After this question was repeated hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, millions, or even an unknowable number of times, a sigh finally sounded in his ears.

"I will be away for a while, Primarch." Someone said to him.

Then, there was a sharp pain, and everything returned to silence and darkness. Leon thought that this was the end, but he could still hear the voice.

Don't give in.

It came from the darkness, from a far distance. Leon turned his head and looked over there, and saw a bright light and a person.

He was seriously injured, and could even be said to be dying. A huge sword pierced his chest, and no one could ignore such an injury.

This man was extremely pale, with sunken cheeks and shiny black eyes. He was spitting blood, and pieces of his internal organs were constantly pouring out, but he was smiling. This smile was very happy, with a pungent smell of blood, and looked very hideous.

Leon felt that he looked familiar. For no reason, his fingers twitched suddenly and a heavy touch came into them, as if he was holding a sword.

Another voice sounded in the darkness, it was the person who spoke before.

"You really gave me a lot to do."

The pale man seemed to have heard his voice, and his smile became even more cheerful: "Then I am really honored. As a fabricated illusion, I seem to have exceeded my mission?"

The person who spoke was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was a little surprised: "What do you know?"

"Oh, I know a lot, Serafax," the pale man said with a grin, his teeth gleaming and his black eyes full of amusement.

"for example?"

"For example, you threw him into many memories from other timelines, and I was just a shadow in one of them. You wanted to confuse him and make him unable to tell who he was, so that you could tamper with the memory of your own Primarch. No, I think it's probably not just as simple as memory? You went to such great lengths to do something unprecedented, right, little traitor?"

The pale man couldn't help laughing wildly.

"what are you laughing at?"

"I am laughing at you," the pale man replied, still laughing. "Even a false illusion can show how stupid you are."

"At least I still have a chance, and you—frankly, you're the worst Conrad Curze I've ever seen in so many branching timelines."

The pale man coughed twice nonchalantly and vomited more blood: "Really? So what?"

"This means that you are not qualified to judge my actions. You abandoned your own legion and your home planet. You had countless opportunities to set things right, but you chose not to do so."

"You are a Primarch, but you chose to give in to nightmares and moral dilemmas, to turn yourself into a madman, to torture your most loyal son. What was his name? Yago Sevitarion? Thanks to you, he is dead. We caught him and skinned him, just like you often do to others. I am different."

"So..." the pale man said slowly. "What's the difference?"

"You're a coward, and I'm not."

As the words fell, the light disappeared. The voice that had been lingering in Leon's ears finally dissipated and no longer sounded. He sat in the darkness dully and numbly, with no one around him, but his fingers kept twitching.

Don't give in.
(End of this chapter)